NAME

       CGI::Application::Plugin::Stream - CGI::Application Plugin for streaming files

SYNOPSIS

         use CGI::Application::Plugin::Stream (qw/stream_file/);

         sub runmode {
           # ...

           # Set up any headers you want to set explicitly
           # using header_props() or header_add() as usual

           #...

           if ( $self->stream_file( $file ) ) {
             return;
           } else {
             return $self->error_mode();
           }
         }

DESCRIPTION

       This plugin provides a way to stream a file back to the user.

       This is useful if you are creating a PDF or Spreadsheet document dynamically to deliver to
       the user.

       The file is read and printed in small chunks to keep memory consumption down.

       This plugin is a consumer, as in your runmode shouldn't try to do any output or anything
       afterwards.  This plugin affects the HTTP response headers, so anything you do afterwards
       will probably not work.  If you pass along a filehandle, we'll make sure to close it for
       you.

       It's recommended that you increment $| (or set it to 1), which will autoflush the buffer
       as your application is streaming out the file.

METHODS

   stream_file()
         $self->stream_file($fh);
         $self->stream_file( '/path/to/file',2048);

       This method can take two parameters, the first the path to the file or a filehandle and
       the second, an optional number of bytes to determine the chunk size of the stream. It
       defaults to 1024.

       It will either stream a file to the user or return false if it fails, perhaps because it
       couldn't find the file you referenced.

       We highly recommend you provide a file name if passing along a filehandle, as we won't be
       able to deduce the file name, and will use 'FILE' by default. Example:

        $self->header_add( -attachment => 'my_file.txt' );

       With both a file handle or file name, we will try to determine the correct content type by
       using File::MMagic. A default of 'application/octet-stream' will be used if File::MMagic
       can't figure it out.

       The size will be calculated and added to the headers as well.

       Again, you can set these explicitly if you want as well:

        $self->header_add(
             -type                     =>      'text/plain',
             -Content_Length   =>      42, # bytes
        );

AUTHOR

       Jason Purdy, <Jason@Purdy.INFO>, with inspiration from Tobias Henoeckl and tremendous
       support from the cgiapp mailing list.

       Mark Stosberg also contributed to this module.

SEE ALSO

       CGI::Application, <http://www.cgi-app.org>, "CREATING A STANDARD HTTP HEADER" in CGI.pm,
       <http://www.mail-archive.com/cgiapp@lists.erlbaum.net/msg02660.html>, File::Basename, "$|"
       in perlvar

LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Jason Purdy, <Jason@Purdy.INFO>

       This library is free software. You can modify and or distribute it under the same terms as
       Perl itself.